Choicest Games now to include reviews of incomplete games

Why am I even playing this game?

I've recently changed the About page for the blog to now indicate that Choicest Games will be lifting its embargo on reviews of incomplete games. Originally, I intended to only review games that I had completed or for those that are impossible to complete (e.g. sandbox games) ones I had invested a decent amount of time in. This is what the About page originally said:

We finish the games that we review. Or at least give a damn good try at it. What I hate about many reviews by commercial publications is that they tend to rush their reviews to ensure they meet their deadlines, often not finishing the game and yet giving the game a good score based on the first couple of hours of gameplay. Nothing ruins a game like a sloppy ending and we see this happen all the time with games. It really can spoil the whole experience and games should be rightly marked down for doing so. True, this means our reviews may come out a bit later than normal, but rest assured, when you read a Choicest Games review, you know we've played the game from almost every angle!

There are a few reasons I've taken this stance namely the following:

1. I don't get paid to do this

As mentioned, this is an independent, non-commercial PC game reviews blog. This isn't my job. Consequently I don't get paid to play really bad games. Originally I would try my best to finish the bad games regardless so I could give a fair, unbiased review. However, when you've got so much else going on and better games you could be playing, you start wondering to yourself, why bother?

2. Not all reviews can be positive

Every game I review can't be all good or fantastic games. If I know I've tried my best to give a game every chance to succeed and it still fails to capture my attention, there's probably going to be a lot of other people out there with the same opinion.

3. Excluding reviews of games I haven't completed might bias the average review score

Games I haven't completed are probably usually games I've lost interest in for some reason, usually because of something I didn't like or there was a better game that took my attention away. Consequently these potentially low-scoring games are being excluded from my total collection of reviews which in turn might be the reason my average review score is hovering around 7/10 instead of perhaps a more balanced 5/10.

To keep the reviewing process as transparent as possible to the readers I've decided to add an extra field to future reviews where it states how much time I've spent playing a game and whether I have finished the game or not. Hope you appreciate the changes, let me know what you think!

Comments